Project Cars - Projects In Progress

We try to put together a story like this every year or so, showing the neatest hot rod cars, trucks, bikes, and what have you being bolted and welded together in pro shops and home garages across the land. We hope to inspire ideas and encourage readers to get out and do the same. Normally, we ring up the hero list of builders (Trepanier, Strope, Ladd, et al.) and see what's shakin', but this time we also hit the trenches to bring to you some true low-buck, father-and-son, at-home builds that are cool. A hero has to start somewhere, right? Got a project you think is interesting enough for our next installment? Let us know about it at HOTROD@HotRod.com.

Troy's Rad Rides
Troy Trepanier's Rad Rides shop in Manteno, Illinois, is building a few cool projects right up HOT ROD's alley. The first is a '56 Buick two-door sedan for Mark Willman that will be powered by a twin-turbo 401 nailhead. The Rad Rides crew machined their own four-bolt main caps and a dry-sump to keep it alive when a pair of 70mm turbos feed it 8 to 10 pounds of intercooled boost. They also built an intake that will get the air through the firewall and will be covered by an oil-bath air cleaner. Subtle body mods were done, and it'll wear two-tone paint.

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You may recognize the Torino in the background from our May '10 cover. It's more radical now and the press is on to finish it soon. The car is being built for George Poteet, so you know it's going to be really nice and very functional. Rad Rides shortened the fenders 3 inches and built a grille that mixes the Talladega and Torino looks. The car will have a NASCAR/Bonne­ville theme, though George's plans are only as hard-core as hitting a few autocross events and maybe the Optima Invitational.

Cornering the Market
Total Cost Involved Engineering (TCI) is one of the leading purveyors of street rod and muscle car chassis and suspension products, offering everything from upgraded steering to modern suspensions, new front clips, and complete replacement frames. The company's latest products are for the Pro Touring muscle car crowd, so to show off the level of performance its suspensions can deliver, TCI is putting together this road-race-style '67 Mustang fastback. The '67 gets the job done with a Smeding Performance 427ci Windsor (583 hp and 585 lb-ft) that transfers its Wheaties through a McLeod RST dual-disc clutch and scattershield, a Tremec TKO-600 five-speed manual trans, and a 3 1⁄2-inch Inland Empire driveshaft to a Currie F9 9-inch Ford-style rearend with 3.89:1 gears and aluminum third-member. But all that's merely to give TCI's new suspension upgrades a real workout. Up front, there's TCI's modern independent front end, complete with rack-and-pinion steering. Planting the rear tires is a TCI torque arm suspension. Wilwood 14-inch rotors with six-piston front and four-piston rear calipers put the brakes on Billet Specialties Le Mans Pro Touring wheels and Michelin PS Sport tires: 295/30-18 on 18x10 front, 335/30-18 on 18x12, rear.

"Our new Mustang suspension delivers the best of both worlds: It's a daily driver or competitive track car." —Sal Solorzano

Hemi Under Class
Rick Head (center) of Exile Turbo Systems and Nick Arias III of (you guessed it) Arias Pistons are working on a project to assault the Classic ranks at Bonneville. Dubbed Hemi Under Class, the car will be a '65 Buick Riviera powered by an LS-based small-block featuring an LSX block, an Aviaid dry-sump oiling system with billet pan, a Callies crank, Pauter steel rods, Arias pistons, and an Isky roller valvetrain. The short-block will be topped with Arias LS hemi heads, a BJ's Racing Manifolds sheetmetal intake, and a CSU blow-through carb fed by an Exile Turbo ET-R Modular Billet 106 turbo. The engine is expected to make in the neighborhood of 2,000 hp on gasoline. The chassis work is being completed (at press time) by Paul Bartlett (left) and Paul Reed (right) of Little People Customs in Ventura, California, and includes a heavily massaged GM X-frame and Ford 9-inch rearend from Coast Driveline and Gear, also of Ventura.

Nova-Caine
Nova-Caine is a '65 Chevy II that was originally built in the Burbank, California, shop of Donal & Ran, and it apparently ran high 8s at 140 mph way back in 1967. At least that's what current owner Don Ahern (Long Island, New York) reports. Don bought it from a guy who found the car sitting in Arizona, complete but for the engine and transmission (the motor in the car was installed later). It is currently undergoing a cosmetic restoration to its original look and drivetrain (which included an injected big-block, a Powerglide trans, and a '55 Pontiac rearend), and will get new but correct lettering.

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G-40rce
After cutting his teeth with a late-model Trans Am that got a lot of magazine attention, Wade Flannery decided to put his skills to work on something older: a '40 Dodge truck built with a traditional flavor but with a distinct race car influence. He calls it G-40RCE. Wade designed many of the parts using Solid Works and got Snapco Fabrication to help jig up and weld the frame, which has been widened to seat the passengers and drivetrain as low as possible and uses C4 Corvette front and rear suspension (with coilovers instead of the Vette's OE rear tranverse leaf). Vintage-style 17- and 18-inch five-spokes with Nitto NT05 tires will stick it. The target is a 10:1 power-to-weight ratio, and the drivetrain will be a small-block Mopar (built by Hughes Engines) with an automatic. The cab is chopped and will retain the flip-out windshield and cowl vent, a '32 Ford grille will be used, and the paint will be two-tone satin black and Mopar dark blue metallic. Vintage race car–style parts and modern safety equipment will be used to continue the theme, as Wade plans on hitting the autocross at Goodguys events. You can watch the truck progress at PictureTrail.com/sfx/album/view/23439519.

A '58 Mustang?
Brian Knill's project is a Mustang, but not the one you're thinking of. This one's a '58 White Mustang highway tractor being built into a hot rod street truck. Brian rescued it from a local (Brantford, Ontario, Canada) farmer's field but could only save the cab, fenders, and hood. The frame is an '86 International Model 4700 that has been lowered 12 inches and uses airbags in place of the original springs. We don't want to guess at the substantial torque from the Cat diesel (from an '89 Peterbuilt), but it's now making 600 hp and runs through a 15-speed Eaton Fuller transmission and a two-speed rearend, and Brian says it'll cruise at 80 mph at just 1,600 rpm in high gear. The truck is not just for show, however. Brian will use it to deliver aluminum horse and cattle trailers for his company, Knill Trailer Sales and Service in Paris, Ontario. The build started seven months ago and is set to be unveiled at The Unfinished Nationals Hot Rod Show in Paris, Ontario, in June. We're thinking he should bring it on Power Tour®.

Tom McMullen's '70 Dodge Found!
Southwest collector Michael Lightbourn has a knack for locating great old cars. In fact, you might recognize his name as the fellow who found Ed Roth's Orbitron on a street in Juarez, Mexico. His latest find is a former Street Rodder magazine project car built by its founder, Tom McMullen. After a few years of not building many cars, Tom decided to get back to it and set out to create something that would be highly competitive on the track but could still be driven. And he wanted it to look wild. He started with a worn-out shop truck from his motorcycle parts company—a '70 Dodge A100. First up was an 11-inch top chop, while the rear wheels were moved 7 inches back. A blown 454 Chevy was positioned behind the driver and was part of a trick setup that let the engine be rolled away from the body by removing the rear suspension and a couple of well-placed pin assemblies. The paint and flames were the icing on the cake and had a taste of Tom's famous '32 highboy.

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In the Aug. '74 issue of Street Rodder, you'll find several pages on the build process, and the Dec. '74 issue has a full feature on the finished truck. Besides the expected wear from age and storage, the Dodge is surprisingly complete and just as Tom built it. The blown 454 and trans are long gone, but the custom Hooker headers are still there as are the towbar and even the wheelie bars fashioned from leaf springs. Interior-wise, the crushed velvet is still in place as is the chrome rollbar and parachute handle. Michael is working with Jesus Gonzalez at Street Toys in Jaurez (StreetToysMx.com) to restore the truck. Watch for the restoration to be complete in late 2011.

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GM Performance Division's Power Tour® Delivery
When Doug Evans, our boss, proposed to GM Performance Division's Craig Shantz a plan for celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Suburban, the idea steamrolled from a bar napkin sketch to the studio of Dave Ross, design manager, underhood and speciality vehicles at GM. The entire GM family is involved in this build, which is powered by a GM Performance Parts LSX-derived 6.0L, tons of character from a genuine '53 Suburban, and brand treatment that matches the support vehicles GMPD is bringing on Power Tour®, as it does every year. Check it out in person at the '11 HOT ROD Power Tour®.

Guldstrand Trans-Am Camaro
Camaro collectors will be horrified to learn that this is a real '69 Z/28, but that's what the serious guys did when these things were new—they cut 'em up and raced them. Corvette hero Dick Guldstrand, who is still doing his heroic thing (see Guldstrand.com), originally built this car for Gerry Gregory Racing and tuned it at the track during the latter part of the '69 SCCA Trans-Am season. Soon after, Guldstrand sold it to someone in Mexico, where it lived until Jon Mello found and authenticated it. It still has most of its original suspension and brakes, which were custom Guldstrand-fabricated pieces. It had obviously led a rough life in Mexico; the front fender is lettered "Baja Mil," which seems to indicate that it ran in the Baja 1000 at some point, and the fenders were radiused for tire clearance. The front subframe was hammered, too. Jon found it for current owner Robert Lodewyk, who's giving it a complete and accurate restoration back to its Trans-Am glory.

Living in a Bubble
A performance tuner on GM ECU-equipped cars, Mark Romans (of Rocklin, California) has worked for GM his whole life. Now Mark is literally building what he preaches. With the assistance of Andy Herbert, he's putting together this badass, heavy-metal '61 Olds Super 88 bubbletop. The classic Olds body with its original factory Fawn Mist color may be the only part of Mark's ride that remains stock. The classic sheetmetal now sits on Art Morrison front and rear clips that mount a C6 Vette front suspension and Morrison's triangulated four-bar suspension out back. Bringing up the rear is a narrowed TrailBlazer SS, semifloating, 9.5-inch rearend with 4.10:1 gears and 33-spline Dutchman axles. Motivation is from a 700-plus horsepower, 403ci, LS2-based engine stuffed by two Garrett GT3582R turbos. "I also am planning on building the fuel system so it's E85 compatible. With gas prices the way they are, I might as well run 105-octane E85!" Mark says. He's been working on this car for two and a half years now and figures he has another two and a half to go. "I work on it as I get enough money."

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For His Dad
Paul Soto's parents dated in this '54 Chevy in the mid-'60s and gave it to Paul for his 16th birthday. They traded ownership back and forth a few times until pops put it into storage as a retirement project. Unfortunately, the elder Soto died prematurely at age 58. Paul planned to sell it to help his mom's finances, but when he came across a note from his dad, the plans changed and now it's being restored and hot-rodded like his dad had planned all those years ago. The build is more sentimental than radical, and it's happening in Paul's garage with the help of some buddies. A 496ci Chevy Rat motor with around 600 hp will go under the big hood, and the car will be painted red and white. Forgive the photo—this one's as real as they get.

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"When I was a young boy, I had a dream. This dream grew inside of me. It became a part of me. It grew with me. I had made a lot of plans with this thing, that was a part of my life. It's still a part of me and want you to have a part of me. Take it to the limit. Love, Dad." —A note from Paul Soto's father

Joe Hrudka Tribute
Chris Sondles owns Woody's Hot Rodz in Bright, Indiana (WoodysHotRodz.com), a dealer for the new Real Steel '57 Chevy bodies. He's using one of the first all-new hardtop bodies to build a '60s-style Gasser as shown in the Josh Shaw rendering, basing it off of Mr. Gasket founder Joe Hrudka's old race car. It's going to have a 460ci big-block with a Muncie four-speed and will sit on a Woody's Gasser chassis. Retro Rocket wheels with Coker bias-plies in the front and Firestone pie-crust slicks in the rear add to the vintage vibe. As we write this, the body is being jig-welded together. The car is scheduled to be driven to the NSRA Nats in Louisville, Kentucky in August.

T2V's Resto Race Cars
T2V Racing and Restoration in Arivaca, Arizona (T2VRacing.com), is all about saving and restoring vintage road-race cars, and owner/operator Owen Gibson occasionally wheels them, too, in races like the Monterey Historics. Coming off a Best in Class—One Man's Dream award at the '10 Amelia Island concourse for the '54 Sorrell-Manning Special, the shop currently has five builds going and another three in line. The '67 Lola T-70, Serial Number 106 (white and blue car in background), is in the shop for prep work before it gets shipped to Los Angeles, while the '57 Townsend Typhoon MK-2 "Purple People Eater" road racer (back, left) is getting a new set of axles in the original Olds rearend. This is the one we saw Owen racing at Monterey; it has an Ak Miller–built Pontiac with six deuces and is a fully sorted-out race car that Gibson saved from oblivion. We'll bring you more of this one soon. He's leaning against the latest find, the Megalomania drag car from the U.K., collecting all the correct parts and history to restore the car back to its record-setting '66 Santa Pod glory days. T2V plans for the car to be ready for a return to Santa Pod—as well as a reunion with the builder's sons in July 2012—and is actively seeking any information or photographs of the car back in the day. If you know anything about it, email him at t2vRacing@aol.com.

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The Green Hornet
Based on the title, you're probably thinking '60s Imperial barge, but this time we mean the Green Hornet T, a Monogram model kit in the '60s and HOT ROD's cover car in Oct. '59. Based on the success of its Black Widow a few years ago, also a model kit brought to life, Hollywood Hot Rods is building this car in human scale. HHR is in the beginning stages with framerails and a body (the glass mockup in the photo will eventually have a steel body) and is collecting parts for the build. The engine will be a '57 Olds V8 with a 4-71 blower. Groovy.

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Sideways in a Monte Carlo
Old-school gearheads may not take front-wheel-drive kindly, but nowadays some wrong-drive late-models even have a V8s albeit transverse mounted. Sam Buscemi's '07 Monte Carlo came stock with a 5.3L LS-series V8. "I always liked the body style. I have family associated with GM, and I just wanted to do something different," Sam says. And how: Poised to terrorize the streets of Sterling Heights, Michigan, will be a transverse-mounted 427 LS7-style motor, destroked to 409 to kill some of the torque and preserve the front-driver 4T65E transaxle. That's courtesy of car and engine builder Matt Snell of Paul's Automotive in Salt Lake City, Utah, a full-service repair, high-perf, and tuner shop. The block is a one-off Dart aluminum casting special-ordered with the GM metric bellhousing to mate seamlessly with the trans.

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Destroked as it is, the engine—with its World Products LS7X heads, Billet Fabrication intake, GT42R Garrett turbo, and Jardine Header Palace exhaust—still makes more than 800 hp at the front wheels, with 600 lb-ft on tap from 3,200 to 5,700 rpm. Matt says, "We've already broken the tranny once, but after serious beef-up, we're close to making it last. It's the torque that kills them." Thankfully, Sam's in the metal business; he had enough pull to get a $2,000, one-piece, high-alloy-steel, Fourth gear clutch made to replace the spindly, OE, two-piece-stamped, pressed-together unit. More friction discs, higher internal pressures, a billet converter, and lots of torque management dialed in to the ECU help, too. GM Performance Parts came to the rescue with its racing drivechain that couples the trans with the 3.42:1 GMPP limited-slip diff.

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"Mash the throttle and it feels like driving in the snow on hard asphalt." —Matt Snell

Brakin' GTO
Raybestos Brakes' PR guy, Josh Russell, is as real as they get. He introduced us to Kevin Tully at Hot Rod Chassis and Cycle (HRCC) in Illinois and to his latest brainstorm, this '64 GTO that will be given away in Gasoline Alley in Indianapolis during the 100th anniversary of the 500 (right as this issue hits newsstands). The lucky winner will get a sorted-out track car with an HRCC chassis, an LSX 454 engine (from CrateEngineDepot.com), a Tremec T56, and all the other goodies you'd want and expect in a hot car. Watch the car's progress on RaybestosGarage.com and check out the HOT ROD TV episode on it. Or, come see it in person on this year's HOT ROD Power Tour®.

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'33 Dodge
Also being built at Hot Rod Chassis & Cycle are several traditional projects, which is what the shop is primarily known for, including this '33 Dodge coupe called "Invidious Miss." It has been chopped 3 inches, along with a lot of other bodywork, and will run a 354 Chrysler Hemi with four Strombergs on a rare Weiand 4x2 intake, and runs through a Tremec five-speed. The chassis is an HRCC special designed to work and put the power to the ground effectively but also have a killer stance. Chrome reverse wheels in the rear mount Coker Firestone 10.00x15 cheater slicks, and Halibrand kidney beans in front have Coker pie crusts. It will be owned by Steve Kroeckel of Illinois.

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Is This Guy Insane?
Yes, you could label Ky Michealson insane. Just check out this former stuntman and lifelong hot rodder/tinkerer's website (The-Rocketman.com) for the full history of his antics and record-breaking missions. It's a good read.

His latest psychotic inventions? Ky thinks his go-kart should run 300 mph in 3 seconds with a hydrogen-peroxide rocket motor that develops 2,000 pounds of thrust. Don't laugh: he's already built one that went 248 mph in the 5-second bracket with half the thrust of this one! The kart is made out of T-6061 aluminum and stainless steel and has a dwarfish 41-inch wheelbase. He's still working on it and plans on running it at air shows and some cacklefests, along with Captain Jack McClure, who made the 248-mph pass. Then there's the bike, called the Kycycle, which is powered by compressed air turning a propeller. And to the wretched email spammer known as Propsterguy, Are you happy!? Will you finally take us off your list?

Have Speed, Will Fabricate
Walk into Kevin McMillan's Speed & Fabrication shop (Oxnard, Calfornia) any weekday and you'll see an eclectic mix of early and late-models, everything from frame-off rebuilds to classic muscle car rejuvenations. Present the day we dropped by the shop was a black '35 DeSoto Airflow, planned as a thoroughly modern rod that can work well as a daily driver. Car owner Ken Hubbard (Ventura, California) wanted to maintain the original looks but upgrade the drivetrain and underpinnings to modern standards. Motivation is supplied by an LS1 backed by a 4L60 overdrive automatic and an 8.6-inch GM 10-bolt rearend. Up front there's a TCI Mustang II and rack-and-pinion conversion kit; out back the rearend is supported by a Noble Fabrications drag link suspension (two lower control arms and a Panhard bar). Thanks to AccuRide airbags, the car has variable ride height capability and driveability that's like riding on air. Twelve-inch Wilwood Dynalite calipers pull out all the stops. The original interior remains; even the gauges look stock but are internally rebuilt to interface with the modern electronically controlled engine.

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"The goal is to keep the original look but update the car as Walter P. Chrysler would have done it today." —Kevin McMillan

RPM Camaro
Followers of Goodguys know RPM Hot Rods (RPM-HotRods.com) as the builder of the '10 giveaway car for that organization, a '70 Mustang called Boss Snake. The cover cars on this issue are more of RPM's handiwork. The '69 Camaro has had the complete Detroit Speed catalog thrown at it, with Baer six-piston brakes all around, and a 555ci Pat Musi Rat motor with stack injection. It started as a pretty nice $25,000 car, but RPM has done a ton of sheetmetal work to it, especially under the hood and inside. The end goal is the Goodguys show this July and a run at the Street Machine of the Year.

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"The Camaro will be cool, laid-back. It's built to be a driver but we'll beat the snot out of it in Columbus." —Chris Ukasik, RPM Hot Rods

Rocky's '49 Ford
The '49 Ford at RPM is owned by Rocky Boler of Long Island, New York, who remembers sliding around in the back seat as a kid during fishing trips with his grandfather. We like that it's still in the family. When finished (target date is about the time you read this) it'll sit on a full Morrison chassis and have a 770hp, stack-injected, 520ci, Kaase Boss 429 under the hood. This car also has a ton of sheetmetal work, but much of it is hard to see on the outside. And yes, that's a '50 grille.